Articles and tips on the topic of working remotely are growing at a rapid rate, but there are few posts from companies like Splice Machine who moved to a 100% remote work environment before the pandemic. In this post, we discuss the downsides of operating office spaces, office space alternatives, and home office perks.
Downsides of Operating an Office
The costs of operating an office can be financially crippling, especially when a company is committed to a multi-year lease and the office space is either underutilized or over-capacity. A company whose employees work from home or a temporary shared workspace can significantly reduce a business’s operating costs and mitigate operating expense risk.
In Cushman & Wakefield’s Tech Cities 2.0 report, the cost-per-square-foot for office space had risen 59 percent between 2000 and 2018, from an average of $199 per square foot to $316, making office space increasingly unaffordable. According to Global Talent Trends Report 2019, Dell’s flexible work program has saved the company an average of $12 million annually since 2014 due to reduced office space requirements. 47% of Aetna's employees use flexible workspaces, saving Aetna 2.7 million square feet of office space and about $78 million annually.
Splice Machine’s Office Space
Before Splice Machine moved to a remote-first work model, we leased modest “Class B” commercial office space in downtown San Francisco running in the low $100s per square foot, and costing the company more than a half-million dollars per year in rent. Our office headquarters was conveniently located to public transportation, with great natural light, plenty of conference rooms, a fully-loaded kitchen, and space to hang out and relax.
When People Ops began researching remote-first strategies, we started paying closer attention to our team’s daily work habits and noticed that our office hang-out spaces were collecting dust. Our teams, like many teams at other companies, were spending most of their day discussing work and socializing on Slack channels, email, or Zoom, often when in the same room with one another.
88% Preferred to Work From Home
Since so much daily communication was already happening around the virtual water cooler, we began to question how important the proverbial ping pong table and unlimited snacks were. Was it worth a commute? When we surveyed the team, 88% said if given the choice, they would prefer to work from their home rather than commuting to an office.
Shared Workspace Alternative
Even though the majority of the company wanted to work from home, we believed it was important to offer people the flexibility to work from a shared workspace as an alternative. Shared workspace is like a SaaS solution for office space, you pay for what you use on a monthly basis. There are a number of shared workspace providers and a variety of options and services offered per vendor to consider before you pick your location.
Common Shared Workspace Options
Cost model (hot seat, permanent desk, office room).
Permanent virtual mailbox.
Support services (copiers, FedEx, wifi, beverage services, refrigerators, showers, bike racks, cafes).
Conference space (helpful for board meetings, team retreats).
Storage space for tradeshow booths, extra hardware, swag.
24/7 access and secured floors.
Near public transportation and places to grab food and drink.
Office culture in sync with your team members.
During our first year, Splice Machine rented a few permanent desks and a small office at Galvanize to use for meetings and storage. Galvanize attracts early-stage startups, VCs and incubators, complementing Splice Machine’s tech startup culture. It also has many other sites in the US making it easy for Splice Machine to host last-minute meetings in other parts of the country.
Home Office Perks
Splice Machine will pay for an employee’s membership to a shared workspace like Galvanize if that is their preferred place to work. To support employees who prefer to work from home, Splice Machine offers benefits that advocate a productive and clean workspace. Each team member working from home is eligible for an “Office Set Up or Spruce Up” allowance and a monthly house cleaning allowance because as Brian Sansoni says, “Tidy house, tidy mind”.
Splice Machine’s number one driver to change to a remote-first workplace was to have access and hire from a larger pool of qualified talent. Moving to a remote-first work model has not only helped us hire great talent on time and at budget, but it has also helped us save money on costly operating expenses like office space so we can focus our spending on the two most important parts of our business, our people and our product.
While we wouldn’t recommend relying solely on Splice Machine’s journey to base your decision and implement remote-first at your company, we believe that by the time you have read through our 12 posts or ebook, you will better understand the options, challenges, and advantages of building a remote-first company.
Watch for our next post where we discuss how to avoid 5 common reasons remote teams fail. You may also view all of our posts on Splice Machine’s career page or download the Splice Machine Journey From Office to 100% Remote ebook that our posts are based on.
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